OK, I have a sentence about shaking someone's hand, I have written: ..he said as he shook Mr. Ramirez' hand. Wondering if it should be: ..he said as he shook Mr. Ramirezes hand. ..he said as he shook Mr. Ramirez's hand. ..he said as he shook Mr. Ramirezs' hand. Am thinking maybe the middle one now I see them all typed there. Confusing myself now ... (yes I know that's not hard!)
Thanks @thirdwind Knew you would come through for me. I confused myself thinking along the same lines as names with S at the end, like Jess. You wouldn't write 'Jess's' (or, I wouldn't) and then I went steadily downhill from there!
No matter the name, the rules are generally the same; Anything with an 's' gets an apostraphy (Princess', Chris', ect.) unless it's a plural noun, then it becomes 'eses' such as "The many princesses of Canada" Anything that doesn't finish with an 's' gets an s after the apostraphy (Alex's, Lord's, Chair's legs, home's roof)as it either denotes a conjoined 'is' or relates the following words as possessive.
Thank you - I think I knew but you know when you look at something too much and overthink it, you eventually convince yourself that everything is wrong!
You can actually leave off the "s" after the apostrophe, and it would still be OK (i.e., "Ramirez' hand"). As far as I know, there's no authoritative ruling on this.
Haha. You should be fine as long as you're consistent throughout the manuscript. Also, I know that some magazines/publishers have their own in-house rules, so don't be surprised if [z's] gets changed to [z'] or vice versa.
